Incest is Not Best Review by Tom Keech Five stars for the intensity of this incestuous love story between a brutal, twisted, gun-obsessed survivalist father and his fourteen-year-old daughter. The daughter, Turtle, shares her father’s belief system but has begun to...

Teenage Dystopian Fiction with a Twist Review by Tom Keech Because of a rash of teen suicides, a new system of handling teenagers’ problems has been developed. Kids are tested for emotional wellness every day to detect signs of suicidal thoughts. If any signs of...

Hipster Nonchalance Carried to Extremes Review by Tom Keech This book reminds me a lot of The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, except it’s better. There’s the same young male character who thinks and acts like a girl. The same absence of any apparent emotional connection...

Review by Tom Keech An upper-middle-class Manhattan family vacations with two friends in Mallorca at a turning point in everyone’s domestic life. There is a lot of food shopping, cooking, eating, admiration of island vistas, swimming, sunning, sightseeing, and bad...

Chick Lit 101 by Tom Keech Barefoot Beach takes place in a small beach town on the Atlantic coast of Maryland. The beach and the ocean, together with the town itself, with its homey little businesses like dance studios and ice-cream shops, are the real centers of...

High-School Janitor or Brilliant Scientist: You/I/We Decide Review by Tom Keech A young woman who is thinking about committing suicide takes a car trip with her new boyfriend to visit his parents in their farm out in the country. She tries not to encourage him too...

Forty Million Readers Can’t Be Wrong Review by Tom Keech Cordelia wants to get rid of her crush on Aiden, a man she’s known since they were young children and who is the brother of one of her best friends. When her father suddenly dies, she discovers the real...

Failure to Jell Review by Tom Keech All of the ingredients are here – murder, rough sex, blackmail, compromised law enforcement officials, long-buried family secrets, betrayals, even Maryland local color – but to me it did not seem to jell into a credible...

They Aren’t All Just Gymnasts, You Know Review by Tom Keech This novel’s elegant prose beautifully mirrors Miri’s artistic eye for the colors and shapes of the natural world she sees in in her small-town life in war-torn, Holocaust-haunted and poverty-stricken...

College of Contrition Review by Tom Keech Fourteen stories about people, mostly academics, seemingly searching for love. In the title story, a man gets the chance to relive two scenes with his third wife in backwards order: first as their marriage is wearing out and...

Bonus: Review Plus Dublin Cop Talk Glossary Review by Tom Keech Detective Antoinette Conway of the Dublin murder squad refuses to close out a case against a pathetic local dweeb who apparently killed his new girlfriend, the love of his life. It happened on the night...

Human Rights v. the Real World Review by Tom Keech An American college girl swept off her feet by an international human rights lawyer finds herself years later divorced, alone and despised by the residents of the small Swiss town into which she has been dumped. She...

Not Quite a Christmas Miracle Review by Tom Keech After being away for several years, a young man returns on Christmas Eve to his deceased mother’s dusty flat in a dilapidated neighborhood in Paris. Fighting off a pervasive sense of vague remorse and guilt, he tries...

247 To Go Review by Tom Keech This is only one of 248 thrillers written by Frederic Dard. It’s not his best. I know that, even though I’ve read only two. As a prisoner is being tortured in an adjacent room, a secret agent is given the task of befriending an inmate to...

Male Rage Review by Tom Keech (Spoiler alert: this review reveals the answer to the central mystery of the story.) A band of anarchists is led by a second personality who inhabits the narrator’s body without his knowledge. Hundreds of men flock to this person’s...

Reluctant Futuristic Assassin Review by Tom Keech Science fiction about a futuristic female assassin. She is not only an assassin but also a captive, having sacrificed any chance for any kind of decent life in order to save her family members. She goes on a desperate...

Mafia Bagman with a Disability Review by Tom Keech A neurologically disabled Mafia bagman, prohibited by the rules from friendships, love, marriage, or even looking into the bags of money he delivers, falls in love with a Mafia widow who then betrays him. Throughout...

Well, Somebody’s Pleasures Review by Tom Keech In London in early Victorian times, during a horrific recession that brings the seething underclass out into the streets, an orphaned 19-year-old girl of the gentility takes an abnormal interest in a series of...

Superpowers in the Projects Review by Tom Keech Midnight’s father was a wealthy and powerful Sudanese landowner who had many servants, a compound so big he needed an extra building just for his guns, diamonds, oil and gold reserves, a master’s degree and a PhD. He was...

Better Than the Old Wife Review by Tom Keech Michael, a 40-year-old, divorced New York suburbanite who has lost his prestigious job and his most recent girlfriend, is on the verge of falling into alcoholism and depression when he is rejuvenated by a 72-hour stand with...

What? Four New Gospels? Review by Tom Keech This is a novel of historical fiction reinterpreting the life and death of Yehoshuah (Jesus) as told by four new narrators. His mother, Miriam (Mary), is spurned throughout her life by her cold and querulous son. Deeply...

Pulitzer Schmullitzer Review by Tom Keech This book won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Olive’s outlook on life is so dark she spreads unhappiness wherever she goes. Her husband brings her flowers and embraces her, but she only “waits for the hug to end.” She doesn’t...